Review of No Reservations (2007) by Henry S — 30 Mar 2012

I'm all for romantic-comedies, I think they are a lovely genre of film. The problem with No Reservations is that I don't think it properly committed to being a romantic comedy. In fact, much like its main character, the movie spreads itself too thin and doesn't manage to successfully be any genre of film. I think the entire movie could have been much better if they would have just made a decision which route they wanted to go and run with it. There's a pseudo romance, some poor attempts at comedy, some tear-jerking drama, a fish-out-of-water story, and more.

The actors are all talented, but I don't think they had a great script to work with. The biggest problem is that Zeta-Jones and Eckhart lack chemistry. It's tough to even see when Jones' character stops hating Eckhart's character. Then, within minutes of film, we are expected to believe that a romantic connection is burgeoning. It's just not convincing. On the flip side Zeta-Jones does pull off the fish-out-of-water role of a single woman being thrust into motherhood, and Abigail Breslin does an excellent job of being the emotional child who lost her mother. It's almost like the movie would be best if they just dropped the romance altogether and focused on making a drama.

As I mentioned the emotional stuff is successful. They definitely manage to bring tears to my eyes, and the actresses play that angle well. I also enjoy the cooking theme of the film. Clearly the producers did their homework and found what life is like for real professional chefs, and it offered a nice contrast to the role of surrogate mother. It seems that they tried so hard to push this through as a romantic comedy, and yet the 2 least successful aspects of the film were the romance and the comedy. It's too bad because there are some very nice things that could have worked so well, but they just didn't see it. I certainly don't hate the film, but it is so schizophrenic that I can't possibly recommend it to anyone.